Why Won’t He Leave Me Alone?

If you find yourself receiving the repeated attentions of somebody, there is a solid chance that this person is a narcissist and one of our kind. The attention that is being given to you may take a variety of different forms. It may manifest as complimenting you, offering to take you out for dinner, asking you for a date, sending you amorous texts, leaving gifts at your workplace, standing and watching you, driving past your house repeatedly, damaging your property, covering your car in battery acid, throwing pain at your windows, calling you names, repeatedly ringing your phone and not speaking and a thousand other different ways. To an outsider some of these behaviors may have the appearance of trying to seduce you and others are clearly designed to frighten and intimidate. Ultimately, both will be unwelcome and the individual who keeps persisting in this behavior is more often than not a narcissist. You may have worked this out and you are entirely clear as to what they are as they try to draw you back into the relationship or make your life a living hell. It is highly unlikely that you will know that the first time seducer is actually one of us, no matter how persistent that person is. You are far more likely to decide that the person is infatuated, obsessed, a stalker or a bit odd. Narcissist is not going to be the label you apply. Not when it happens for the first time.

Why then do we engage in such persistent behaviour? Why do we try and seduce and woo you into entering into a Formal Relationship, to draw you back in to one or just to make your life a misery?

The First Seduction

It may seem pleasant at first to receive this attention even though you are not interested and with a smile you turn down the overtures of the office Romeo. He persists in keep asking you out. He is always polite and charming but you do not wish to say no. You may have a partner already, not be interested in dating or just find this person not to your liking. You keep rebuffing this person, sometimes more firmly than on other occasions but he will not take no for an answer. There should be a picture of this man or woman in the dictionary under ‘persistence’. They are never horrible, never nasty but you start to get that sensation of dread now whenever you see him or her coming down the corridor towards you, or walking down your garden path or their number appears on your ‘phone. You do not want to be unpleasant about it, because you can see they are, apparently, a pleasant person, but it is starting to become something that is unwelcome. Why will this person not get the message.

Our sense of entitlement means that if we decide we want something, then we get it. It does not matter what anybody else says or wants, we are entitled to do what we want. We want to seduce you and make you our primary appliance. Accordingly, we will keep going until we achieve this or we decide against doing so. What you say to us or what a third party might do will not dissuade us.

We do not recognise boundaries and therefore we can come and park our tanks on your lawn. We want you as an extension of ourselves and we do not regard there as being any boundary to prevent us from doing so.

You have been identified by us as a potentially brilliant source of fuel. We undertake planning before we make our move and also rely on instinct in identifying those who serve out needs the most effectively. The extent of the planning will vary dependent on the type of narcissist, but one way or another you have been spotted as a supertanker of fuel and we want that fuel, thus you have to become our primary source. The prize is well worth expending the effort. Thus, if you cannot understand why we just keep going and going, you may wish to consider whether it is who you are that is attracting us to such a degree. You may think you are something of a catch and viewed by the ‘normals’ you are, but to us it is your status as a provider of fuel that has caught our eye. This behaviour appears mainly by Mid-Range and Greater Narcissists because they are able to last longer using secondary sources for their fuel supply whilst they continue the hunt with you.

It may be that the way you are engaging with us, even though you are trying to tell us that you are not interested, is what continues to have us pressing you. If you smile when we appear with some flowers and you thank us for them but politely let us know you do not want a date, you are still giving us fuel. If you giggle with your friends when we perform some silly romantic gesture at the door of your workplace, then we receive fuel. Even if you show irritation or perhaps begin to shout that we should leave you alone, you are providing fuel. This both sustains us and encourages us.

A further alternative is that we are obtaining fuel elsewhere, this is most likely to be from devaluing the current primary appliance and so long as this fuel is being provided then the pursuit will continue. We can keep chipping away at your resistance for a long time, since we are getting fueled elsewhere and this is sustaining our endeavours to secure you as the replacement primary source. If there is any kind of engagement on your behalf, even if fuel is not being provided, although it usually is, you are providing encouragement that a breakthrough may occur.

How then do you stop this narcissist from keep trying to seduce you? You need to give NoFuC. This stands for No Fuel Carrier. You must shut off the fuel, avoid any engagement and demonstrate that there will be no fuel provided. You will not smile, you will not say thanks but no thanks, you will not tell us to piss off or shout angrily for us to leave us alone. You will not accept the gifts, you will not acknowledge us, you will block all calls and insert gatekeepers where you can. By giving NoFuC, the narcissist who was gaining fuel from the interaction will break off and go elsewhere. If there is no means of contact, or very little, this combined with an absence of fuel will also dissuade us. If we are gaining fuel still elsewhere, if it is impossible or hard to contact you and there is no evidence of fuel being available, we are likely to test your resolve but ultimately with no potential for fuel, we will shift out focus somewhere else.

Ensuring you give NoFuC and doing so consistently is the key to dissuading the narcissist who is trying to seduce you for the first time. This is of course if you are fortunate enough not to be interested, since nearly all targets are interested and thus susceptible to being seduced and that you recognise what you are dealing with.

Post Escape

In this instance you are more likely, albeit not guaranteed, to know that you are dealing with one of our kind. What is happening when we will not leave you alone when you have escaped us?

You may be experiencing the Initial Grand Hoover. If the attempts to contact you and establish the Formal Relationship again are taking place soon after your escape, they are intense and repeated in nature and you feel like you are under siege, then this is the IGH. To deal with this you need to maintain no contact and sit the blitzkrieg out. Dependent on the type of narcissist you are dealing with and the availability of other fuel sources, the IGH can be sustained for a number of weeks. More usually it is a concentrated blast over a week or so and then if your resolve holds, there will be a respite as we withdraw and seek fuel elsewhere to recover from the diminution in our supply caused by your escape. You need to put your tin hat on and hunker down.

If it is not the IFH but the behaviour towards you is pleasant and/or aimed at getting you to come back to us, you are experiencing a Benign Follow Up Hoover. The BFUH can happen repeatedly too. It is less intense but can appear on and off over years. Why is this happening?

Firstly, you must be activating the Hoover Trigger by entering one of the five spheres of influence. Are you responding to messages, are you contacting the narcissist about something, are you passing near where he lives or works, are you fraternizing with people who know him or her? You need to ascertain which sphere or spheres of influence you are entering and stay out of them.

If you do this and the BFUHs keep happening, then you are appearing in the sixth sphere which is our mind. Usually this is only sporadic because we will be occupied with other fuel sources, but it can be the case that if you were/are a particularly good fuel source once you appear in the sixth sphere you become lodged there and the trigger keeps getting activated.

That alone of course is not enough to bring about the hoover. The Hoover Execution Criteria has to be met as well. It is obviously being met if you keep experiencing these BFUHs and what usually causes the criteria to be met is that some fuel is being provided which encourages us to keep pressing for more.

You need to ascertain how this fuel is being caused. There are three potential reasons

Proximate Fuel – you are having some interaction with us which allows us to draw fuel from you. This might be when you are passing where we work, when there is a handover of children or such like. This will then allow the criteria to be easily met and thus you can expect BFUHs to occur. Turn off the provision of proximate fuel. Avoid us or where that is not possible, ensure no or very little fuel is provided when there is proximate interaction.

Thought Fuel – we may be encouraged by the Thought Fuel that we obtain from perceiving how you are reacting to our interactions. If we believe, based on previous experience, you will smile when you get the flowers or you will think back to when we were together when we drop a CD of a certain song through your letterbox, this will encourage us. Thought Fuel has a limited shelf life and if it is this which is giving us the encouragement, by sitting it out, its effect will dissipate and the criteria will no longer be met.

Proxy Fuel – you have a traitor in your camp. It may be someone well-intentioned or someone deliberately spying on you, but this individual is feeding to us your reactions to what we are doing. We do not see your emotional reaction, we do not purely envisage it, but someone is telling us that you keep talking about us, you get upset when our name is mentioned and so forth. This encourages us and allows the criteria to be met. You need to work out who this is and prevent them from relaying this information to us, either through asking them to stop or more usually by not giving them the information in the first place.

If you halt the trigger and even if you have a narcissist who is stuck in the sixth sphere, if you prevent the provision of the above types of fuel, this will be more likely to prevent the criteria being met. No trigger or a trigger and no criteria being met means no more hoovers and you will be left alone.

The Malign Follow-Up Hoover

There is no desire to resurrect the Formal Relationship. We do not want positive fuel from you in any event. We want to hurt you, make you cry, make you angry, make you scared. Whatever it is, we want your negative response as this will allow us to draw negative fuel from you and also punish you.

Again, prevent the triggers by staying out the sphere of influence. The Malign FUH causes a real problem because the narcissist may remain stuck in the sixth sphere through malice and if he is gaining fuel from a new primary source, there is a greater risk of the narcissist having sufficient fuel to keep trying with you. Thus with the malign FUH the threshold for the hoover execution criteria is often lower. This is why when you have somebody who is doling out malign FUHs against you, it can appear overwhelming, incessant and frenzied. The thought fuel is also stronger with this type of FUH.

Avoid the triggers. If you are and they are still happening, it is clear the sixth sphere is being activated. Make yourself hard to contact, avoid providing fuel as described above and eventually the need for fuel and the lack of it from you, will cause you to be left alone, but you should be aware that the propensity to be stuck in the sixth sphere, the availability of other fuel and the lowered criteria threshold can result in a very rough ride for some people, not all, but some.

Post discard

There will be no IGH when this happens because we chose to discard you. You will face Benign FUHs and/or Malign FUHs dependent on the type of narcissist and the prevailing situation. The same considerations apply as described above.

Ultimately, we will not leave you alone because of the prospect of fuel and the taste of fuel that is being provided in the meanwhile. This is what drives us to keep harassing, contacting and pestering you, but as ever, there are steps you can take. Understand why it is happening and then you can establish what action needs to be taken. It may be maintaining your defences, preserving no contact and sitting out the storm or it may also require proactive steps on your part.

18 thoughts on “Why Won’t He Leave Me Alone?”

It seems my Narc won’t stop Talking about me to everyone he knows. He has a new Supply and her kids have said that he won’t stop talking about me. I have a restraining order on him. Can a narc be obsessed with one supply ???

A few days ago, HG put a little bee in my bonnet when I listened to the YouTube video, “FB Ghostship”, resulting in my reactivating my FB which has caused me some trouble!

Not only did I find out that an ex-live-in had passed five months ago to the day, but I looked at my other ex-live-in’s daughter’s FB page (would she know?). (She is at least 19, please be aware that I meant no harm to her, I just miss his three daughters and was so happy to see her smiling face.)

Both of these two ex’s live 3000 miles away. The first one had a huge impact on me. He has had no way to contact me for 5 years. We met almost 23 years ago. The last time that I spoke to the second one was many months ago, he had no way to contact me for three months now and it is around the three year anniversary of the last time that we saw each other.

In this article, you say, “If there is any kind of engagement on your behalf, even if fuel is not being provided, although it usually is, you are providing encouragement that a breakthrough may occur.” The day after looking at the second one’s daughter’s FB page, her father / my ex asked my sister twice to get me to call him.

HG, do you think it is a coincidence that he is trying to reach me now? Do you think his daughter would know that I looked at her FB page and told him? I didn’t and don’t want to be in contact with him – because you made me aware of what sort of person he is (thank you!).

It is super creepy – he and my now deceased ex-live-in’s voices sound so much alike. FB Ghostship!!

HG, oops emotional thinking . . . outing him on the site would serve no purpose whatsoever. And if he is trolling the site, am I correct in that I would actually be outing my emotions and providing him with tertiary fuel and any little hint could cause a hoover . . .

HG….FUC….very fucking clever humour! Ah see…I am clever nyself! Am I correct in assuming your British accent AND that English sense of humour are a huge part of your jolly, bloody narcisstic charm?! Eh?! Im curious….Do you enjoy the British humour in Mr Bean or Fawlty Towers? Thx for the rigged poll opportunity. I am very much enjoying the narc fairy tales! Keep them coming! You should compile these into a book. You HAVE to write one with Mirror Mirror on the wall….who is the most famous narc of them all?! Of course, you wont like that I just told you what to do! Ha ha! Best regards!

Oh my , this describes my ex to the t. I leave him hateful emails telling him to stay away or I will hurt him. And he still comes over. He recently brought me a new computer and so I thought that was nice of him. I didn’t realize what he was doing was getting his foot in the door so that when I left him alone so he can” set up the new computer” he was erasing everything from my computer, from the external back up and from my imac on the other side of the room.! He deleted all my pictures, movies, art work,documents Everything! I literally wanted to kill him. When I try recovery software it doesn’t bring back the music and photos the way they were . But I have faith in technology . He is a monster. I should have known. He is evil. His name is Skylar Deranick and if you meet him here in Hollywood CA. Stay clear cause he truly is the worst narcisisst of their kind..

So you really have a key-logger on your network and can see what packets are dropped in transfer or you got a virus on your computer that deletes everything you’ve been keeping?
You can’t expect me to believe that your entire file system was destroyed without you knowing